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Conclusion

On 4 May 1979, Margaret Thatcher paused on the steps of number 10 Downing Street to talk to journalists before starting work as Britain’s first woman Prime Minister. One journalist asked her if she had ‘any thoughts at this moment about Mrs Pankhurst’, a question which Thatcher chose to ignore.1 Women’s groups were similarly ambivalent about her appointment: while some welcomed the symbolic potential of a woman Prime Minister, others demonstrated with placards demanding ‘women’s rights, not a right-wing woman’.